Dave Brisbin 12.8.24
What does the story of Job have to do with Christmas?

Any story is a story about risk. We’ve all been at risk from our first breath, but we don’t like to think of ourselves balanced on a razor’s edge of circumstances we can’t control. We work really hard to manage risk, grow as big as we can, accumulate money and materials so risk will have to get through all our stuff before it ever gets to us. Illusion. Risk passes through stuff like ghosts through walls.

Job was big. Had everything a person could imagine—big hedges against risk. So when it all was taken, no one was more surprised than he. He cried out for answers, but when God finally speaks from the whirlwind of mystery and non-answer, Job finally admits his smallness. He had to lose everything to see himself as he was, that working to grow big is just another attempt at the control and invulnerability that will always elude. It’s not who we are as humans, and we’re never complete without accepting who we are. Only in our innate vulnerability do we find the connection that we call meaning and purpose. Job had to grow small to see this.

If you want to find something lost by a child, what do you do? 

You get on your hands and knees so you can see all the little crevices and nooks hidden at adult standing height. The story of Christmas is the story of growing small. Jesus is born a helpless infant and also lying in a manger—code for poor, marginalized, powerless. Jesus started as small as is possible for a human…and he never grew out of his smallness. Even as his fame and influence grew, his attitude remained that of the anawim: people who have accepted smallness while retaining hope and gratitude.

Jesus and Job found what can only be seen from the standing height of a child, the kneeling height of a servant. Why are so many of us depressed at Christmas? Because we imprint the magic of Christmas from a perspective three feet off the ground and try to find it again from the height of an adult. Our God risks being small, vulnerable for the sake of connection. The only way to find what has been seen by a childlike God is to get on our knees and grow small.

Growing Small

"Tarot," from Casado con Jefa, is a rhythmic journey inspired by mysticism, intuition, and divination. With vibrant soundscapes and intricate layers, this track embodies empowerment and the transformative power of self-discovery.

Lyrics:
"Hear me in your Stereo
That Taft Tarro
Not Montero,
Mico pull that arrow
Hi I’m Misko’o
Casado Con Jefa
Casado Con Jefa

Warrior
Warrior
Threat
Warrior
Warrior
Threat

What I look like wasting time
Adding a solo
When I made this beat dolo
All the way to Arkansas & Kansas though
Bet you didn’t know that rhyme
Prestige and lament
Trophies on the cabinet

That Redwine
That Red wine
Listening to Magnolia Shorty
I got a bit til I’m 40

That glow can be seen from Kilimanjaro,
But that hole narrow
Spare me sparrow
I’m Red Eagle
Down to my marrow
Tanning in Cairo

Hear me in your Stereo
That Taft Tarro
Not Montero,
Mico pull that arrow
Hi I’m Misko’o
Casado Con Jefa
Casado Con Jefa

Warrior
Warrior
Threat
Warrior
Warrior
Threat

My cards foretell it,
Credit card or debit
Cash app, pay pal
Tell ‘em to send it

They said I’m
A menace

They said I’m
A menace

Beautiful & Brilliant
Quoting Bones,
They tracking ya phones
Ya honor tell the respondent
He can eat it
Tell ‘em to beat it

That Taft Tarro
Not Montero,
Mico pull that arrow
Hi I’m Misko’o
Casado Con Jefa
Casado Con Jefa

Warrior
Warrior
Threat
Warrior
Warrior
Threat
Warrior
Warrior
Threat
Warrior
Warrior
Threat

You let ‘em talk down to you
Cause you think he the plug
MY AUNTIE TOLD
ME
NOTHING SCARIER THAN ME

My Auntie Donna
Make him uncomfortable like Madonna
I been chillin with saints
Van Gogh, air filled with paints
Can’t hide
I’m like formaldehyde
Like Jekel & Hyde
Saved your own hide
Think he the savior
So I slipped and slide
Can’t deal with the messiah complex
I get em high off sex

That Taft Tarro
Not Montero,
Mico pull that arrow
Hi I’m Misko’o
Casado Con Jefa
Casado Con Jefa

That Taft Tarro
Not Montero,
Mico pull that arrow
Hi I’m Misko’o
Casado Con Jefa
Casado Con Jefa

Warrior
Warrior
Threat
Warrior
Warrior
Threat"

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Casado con Jefa

TAROT

Ambient translation of Hymn 3 of the Pearl of St. Ephraim

The Serpent Cannot Strip Off Your Glory

music Author/Created by: Giush Sikharulidze

------
This is the music that will awaken the vampire in you. When the moon shines at midnight, the music will awaken the dark and majestic demon in you.

Vampire

INNER MASTERY

With exceptional grace, this narrative shines in its enchanting beauty. It is interwoven with love and a comforting sense of warmth that touches the heart in an exceedingly unique way. It's rare to come across such first-rate stories that generate such a profound emotional resonance and bring entire worlds to life in the imagination. This narrative stimulates the imagination and takes the reader on an unforgettable journey through captivating realms of thought. Undoubtedly, it is a valuable literary discovery!

https://www.matostorytellingmanufacture.com/product-page/the-garden-of-mr-mathieu-1

The garden of Mr. Mathieu Audiobook Preview

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Please support her important ongoing work with a donation to
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To make a donation visit www.thewhiterose.org/donate

Monthly Contemplations ~ 'Harmony'  17 December 2024

Dave Brisbin 12.15.24
What is it we’re supposed to see in Christmas? Talk about a mixed message... Only two gospels mention Jesus’ birth at all, and the few details given depict a birth so ordinary to parents so poor that those closest didn’t even make room for them in the inn. Enter shepherds and Magi...here the gospels spend a bit more time, because their reactions were anything but ordinary. 

What did they see that everyone else missed?

We only see what we’re prepared to see. Impoverished shepherds spending their lives in silence and solitude with their flocks, grew a consciousness that allowed them to see significance in the smallest detail. Magi—wealthy, educated advisors to the king—were used to power and influence. Yet these magi had retained a humility and vulnerability that allowed them to see the promise of their star while still unformed in a poor Hebrew infant. If we’re willing, the magi are showing us wealthy, educated ones how to get small enough to see Christmas.

Christmas has a way of bringing vague, submerged feelings to the surface the way hook and line bring up fish. We find ourselves grasping squirming emotions that should have nothing to do with what we think Christmas is supposed to mean, what we remember it used to mean. We imprinted the meaning of Christmas through a child’s eyes, then subtly mourn its loss each year through adult eyes.

Christmas hasn’t changed; the possibility of Christmas returns every December. We have changed. We’ve lost the pace of childhood, forgotten the smallest details. Maybe Christmas-as-remembered happens exactly when we stop trying to make it happen. Maybe when we stop running faster and faster, trying to catch the stored experience of Christmas, meaning has a chance to catch up and catch us. 

We can’t choose the pace of life around us anymore than we can alter the course of a storm. But we can choose our own pace within it. Of course we will always find our God as a child. Unassuming. Unformed and always forming. Are we prepared to see?

Every time we meet our God is Christmas morning.
The babe is in the manger.
The star is in the east.
And we are the Magi, and they are us.

We Magi

Audio podcasts delivered at theeffect church in San Clemente, CA. theeffect is a community of imperfect people working together to find the emotional recovery and spiritual transformation that is theeffect of God’s love by unlearning limiting perceptions, beliefs, and compulsions, and engaging a first century Jesus in a non-religious and transforming way. See more at theeffect.org.

Amethyst Amaris is always evolving, blending trap, jazz, Indigenous vibes, soul, house, and poetry to create a sound that’s unmistakably her own. As the creative force behind Black NDN Music (or Trap Vogue), she’s dropped over 300 original tracks that take listeners on a new path through raw emotion, channeling, actively innovating new ideas. From her original works to AI creations. Stay tuned—there’s always something new, and the story’s only getting started.

True North with Dave Brisbin is a podcast about the things that can bring you back to center, whether God, spirituality, community or family or all of them. Never esoteric or abstract for its own sake; always practical and full of common sense, we’re interested in exploring the effect of what we believe on our lives and questioning what we believe in light of the deep connection we’re meant to live. Dave Brisbin is an author, speaker, coach, and songwriter. He is the teaching pastor of theeffect, a faith community and recovery ministry in San Clemente, CA and executive director of Encompass Recovery, an addiction treatment center in San Juan Capistrano. For more on finding deeper spiritual expression free from limiting beliefs and behavior, go to davebrisbin.com.

ambient devotional experiments 
synth + shortwave
theology + hauntology

New tracks tagged #Mysticism